Happy Ending



Heh.

When the story ends on a high note, which is traditionally the point where the protagonists win and the antagonists lose. Happy Ending is the single most common Story Ending in fiction history. The Hero embarks on their journey, fights the enemies in their way, works up to the Villain, and engages in the Big Fight. No matter how unfavorable the fight may look to the audience, they can count on the Good Guys to come out on top of the Bad Guys. Eventually, the Hero gains the upper hand and uses their momentum to make the final push that overthrows the Villain and their underlings. This victory Saves The Day and deems the Good Guys the heroes.

There are many ways the Happy Ending can play out. Starting with the most revisited by creators, the Big Fight can be an uphill battle that nearly ends with the Hero losing in their final confrontation with their archenemy. The Villain, having the high ground, may take time to gloat about their eventual win and how the Hero wasted their time with their entire adventure. This down-talking lends the Hero the time to do what's needed to win. They may look around the arena for an exploitable feature, maybe something they discovered in a For-Later Lesson relating to the Villain's Greatest Weakness. The For-Later Lesson can also come in handy when the Hero must perform a certain action to bring the Villain to their knees. To ensure the Villain never commits their crimes again, the Good Guys often kill or banish them. This adds to the Good Guys' sense of accomplishment as there is now no chance of their actions being undone by the Villain rising again. Alternatively, more merciful protagonists may decide to convert the Villain. This is a risky option, however, and requires careful handling and convincing skills. Even if the Villain is banged up before talks begin, they can still pull a Dirty Trick to lure the Good Guys into a false sense of friendliness. They act as if they're ready to give up their old ways just before the Good Guys let their guard down. The Villain then suddenly takes a Cheap Shot at their foes, which, if executed correctly, may cost a protagonist their life. This is more fitting to an Alt Happy Ending, so we won't say any more about this outcome here.

Since Good Always Prevails, protagonists of either adventurous or familiar franchises are well acquainted with Happy Endings of any size. It's because of this the UnTrash has become one of the most predictable in the history of fiction. Saying "the Hero and their buddies win" isn't as much of a spoiler as it is confirmation of the audience's expectations. Taking a look at familiar franchises, the Main Cast can be subjected to heart-retching disappointment or failure and still come out okay on the count of unfair play. The plot could set them up to be at a total loss just to screw itself and hand over the win in spite of the drama build-up. Happy Ending can go as far as to introduce an out-of-nowhere solution purely for the sake of the Main Cast not having to go home empty-handed. A story conclusion that relinquishes such a hollow victory doesn't just kill all drama and emotion. It teaches the Anti-Lesson that the Main Cast can get whatever they want in the end regardless of how much they messed around and didn't deserve it. Familiar franchises may ruin themselves hard with forced Happy Endings, but it can be argued that adventurous ones can do worse. The Hero is meant to grow more than the Main, and if they fail to do that in the right way, the creator's job is to punish them for it. If the Hero fails but does so after giving their all, they can be comforted with an Alt Happy Ending. When the Hero Smokes Weed And Jacks Off and still gets rewarded with a Happy Ending, they gain negative experience that encourages them to be a worse character. Happy Ending is exceptionally insulting to the audience if the Hero endured a considerable amount of suffering, setbacks, heartbreak, sacrificing, or other challenges that got in the way of their joy or comfort. In these stories, Happy Ending is as inappropriate as it can get. It spits in the face of every ounce of agony the Hero and other Good Guys dealt with and bites into the audience connecting with them. Another factor that turns Happy Ending into a disagreeable UnTrash is writing an unlikable character to star in it. A Jerk, SOB, or Bully who gets their way in the end goes against the audience's hopes of them getting their comeuppance by the story's end.

The conditions required for Happy Ending are various and dependent on the specific context at hand. Adventurous franchises are very straightforward: the Good Guys must do what they can to topple the Bad Guys and Save The Day. In the most played out stories, this is as far as things will ever go. For added depth and bonus Entertainment Value, the Good Guys should be given major objectives that don't involve the Villain every time. Maybe they have to escort a very important client to their home so they can perform duties necessary to the security of the world. Familiar franchises don't move around as much, so one cast of characters will recur much more. Happy Endings here are more akin to Save The Day than Save The World. They resolve the minor problems people have that the Main must help fix. Where Happy Ending fails to be credible is times when the person struggling with a problem has a specialty that falls out of rage of the Main's own set of skills. Say a Chef needs to please a Critic with a "perfect meal" so their restaurant can get a high rating and attract more future customers. The Main naturally has average culinary abilities at best, but when they lend their own amateur advice to the veteran chef, this somehow solves the conflict. The audience may have to ask themselves here about how an unskilled preparer of food can do a better job at whipping up a meal than the one whose profession is to do that exact thing. Why the Main succeeds with flying colors in a realm that they have no actual knowledge in makes no sense. A similar case is seen when the Main must perform a task that they have no prior experience with to work out the plot's central conflict. Here, they may need to climb a mountain to save a lost hiker and return them to their family far below. Again, the God-Send Skills the Main is granted are too convenient to sit well with viewers who own functioning brains. The number of times the average person has climbed a mountain tends to be approximately zero. If the Main is supposed to be the Everyman or Me, they'll breach their role's expectations. Showing them waltz around such an unpredictable and foreign area isn't too far from making them overpowered. Although the plot may see them fight against their lack of competence for a successful climb, it won't matter if they don't undergo any real setbacks, danger, or injury. Fake Danger isn't going to help distract the audience from how the Main gets away with approaching a high-end challenge while not having any experience, training, or even guidance on what they're doing. The creator can save themselves from incorrectly playing Happy Ending by opting for a more believable ending consistent with the cast's rules. Going back to the Main and the Chef, the Main might not be able to put together a proper meal, but their attempts give the Chef ideas on how they can satisfy the Critic. And with the Main on the mountain, an Unhappy Ending may reveal the hiker stumbled to their death, a sight that scares the Main into more cautiously considering their steps back down and partially circumvents their inexperience with mountain climbing.

The old saying of there being a time and place for everything is true, and Happy Ending is no exception. This UnTrash sends the message that everything working out in the end is in tune with the franchise's themes. If this isn't true, Happy Ending will seem forced and merely for the sake of not letting the Main Cast down too much. A misplaced Happy Ending may be the greatest insult to whatever conflicts and Character Building the Main Cast went through to reach that point. There is no need for the Good Guys transforming if they would have won in the end regardless. This UnTrash can additionally destroy the sense of mystery in the story, namely if the end was meant to be open to interpretation or deliberately Confuse The Audience. Drama, tension, and mature thenes are victims to a bad Happy Ending that can weaken all of them in one wave of a hand. If the story has a heavy atmosphere where nothing seems to go right, a Happy Ending will slap any drama in the face. The creators will appear to have wanted to go in one direction but refused to go all the way and pay the price for realizing their true intentions. This emotionally flips the audience and drops their attachment to and respect for the story.

UnRec
Even if they aren't actively anticipating it, the audience will be subconsciously prepared for a Happy Ending to your story. They've been conditioned by hundreds of stories before yours that all follow the same pattern: good guy needs to do something, good guy goes to do that thing, good guy does that thing, good guy wins. Despite all the hardships the Hero must endure to reach their objective, they triumph every single time. And nothing is learned. No new storytelling methods are introduced, no exciting events take place, no intriguing character development is seen. That's where you come in. When your audience reaches the last act of your story, the events that preceded it having built excitement for the Grand Finale that is your Story Ending, they hunger for a conclusion with payoff that delivers. Happy Ending is an UnTrash that doesn't function well in this area. You're going to have to aim higher than a Big Fight with Fake Danger the audience knows will be worked through by the Good Guys. If your Hero has a few friends enter the Big Fight's arena, put them to good writing use. Have somebody get killed in the high-paced confusion. Get the Villain to warp a neglected teammate and fight against their friends. Sacrifice the Loyal in trade of their friends' success. You can also allow the Villain to make a last-second escape with Teleportation for Sequel Bait if this isn't a stand-alone story or the last in a series. Anything that adds drama or tension to the story as it closes will serve you better than the Good Guys knocking the Villain over a cliff and celebrating their win. Happy Ending is even more disgusting if the Good Guys didn't deserve to win. A group of bumbling idiots should learn the true meaning of Fuck Around And Find Out. Handing them the win after they did nothing but Smoke Weed And Jack Off is an excellent way to throw any potential meaning to your work out the window. It helps to slap them on the wrist when they waste time so that they can shape up into heroes worthy of beating the Villain when it matters most. In summary, Happy Ending is like a cake at the end of the Good Guys' journey. They can only be treated to it if it's a reward fitting their efforts and methods. Giving them their slice of the cake without them actively working or transforming for it can burden the audience with revulsion.