Not-happy endings in fiction that you thought were great

[TissueBox]

Heya folks!

Ah, the tragedy. Sometimes... it's not so escapist in our larger than life fictitious spaces. 😞 But when a good yarn is a good yarn, it could make for experiences, characters, and imagery that linger on in the mind, in the veins beneath the skin. *nod* Something like that.

SO what are some not-happy story endings that served as great, if bittersweet, closers to their chapter? ^^'

I, for one, must raise Flowers for Algernon... one of the most crushing, but resonant, turns of phrase this side of the century.

____________________

Romeo and Juliet, by Frank Dicksee

 

[Mekanos]

The original Devilman manga. Doesn't get more unhappy than the apocalypse and Satan winning.

 

[echoshifting]

So many. I love an unhappy ending

Fight Club (the book)
One Hundred Years of Solitude - the GOAT downer ending
Grapes of Wrath. Maybe most Steinbeck, actually? But especially this one
Requiem for a Dream
The Mist
Brokeback Mountain
Song of Achilles
A Little Life
Never Let Me Go
Abandon Me - (big spoilers in spoiler text) - this one is special, because it's a memoir the author wrote while she was with the woman who she thought was her forever person. But in the writing of the book, she realized that it was a breakup story…and just kept writing it. It's almost unbelievably brave and sad

 

[Unknownlight]

…I kind of don't want to talk much about any examples, because that would be spoiling stories that I like.

I really liked the ending of Worm. An excerpt from the final chapter (pre-epilogue):

"Would you do it all over again? Knowing what you know now? Knowing that you end up here, at gunpoint?"

"I… know I'm supposed to say yes," the words made their way past my lips. "But no. Some-somewhere along way, it became no."

Click to shrink...

 

[echoshifting]

Yeah the thread should at least be marked as spoiler heavy

 

[Rated-G]

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Both parts of The Last of Us

 

[Elfgore]

Cyberpunk Edgerunners.

Spoiler

Protagonists who fail in some regards are sometimes my favorites. Sometimes your best isn't good enough. Sometimes you fail to learn from the failures of others

The series is amazing, but I legit still had to go bed right after finishing it because I felt life had no meaning.

The original Devilman manga. Doesn't get more unhappy than the apocalypse and Satan winning.

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Hell, Crybaby as well. Guess everyone has a heart. 😭

 

[Mr. Floyd]

The Mist is one of my favourites. So fucking dark.

 

[Mekanos]

Hell, Crybaby as well. Guess everyone has a heart. 😭

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I enjoyed Crybaby, but as an adaptation of Devilman I had some gripes with changes to the story and ending. But I also get why they did it because adapting the manga ending as-is would probably be seen as anticlimactic.

 

[jakomocha]

Telltale's Walking Dead. Ouch 😢

 

[Dice]

Cyberpunk 2077 really makes you regret choosing the "get cured" options in both base game and DLC; but I love that kinda cruel twist, it's perfect for a setting and series like this.

Never Let Me Go made me hold my pillow hard. A heart-wrenching love triangle, but it ends very poorly for everyone involved (like, no even "heartbreak" but hopelessness). It's a movie about clones, fyi.

Bridge to Terabithia remains one of the cruelest ways to market a trailer ever. But uh yeah this literary classic punches you in the gut by the end, and doesn't care that you're probably a tween reading it (which is arguably the point, and a great tale for the kids who have endured a traumatic event).

 

[AngryMobofSteve]

"Bang."



You're gonna carry that weight.

 

[RadioHeadAche]

I feel like the original Silent Hill Good ending (which I believe is the canon one) is a good example of this. I guess it does end up being happy later on as we find out in 3, but that seemed like quite some time later.

 

[Titantodd]

All Quiet on the Western Front. The original film and novel. I love how understated Paul's final fate is. That he could have been anybody and what happened to him could have happened to anyone, completely forgotten and unknown.

The more recent film overplays its hand by having it happen literally on Armistice Day. It defeats both the point of the the original and the actual title of the book.

 

[Katsyo]

I've been kinda mulling over what kind of an ending it actually was for the Brave New World book. I thought it made sense but not sure to categorize it as either happy / unhappy or just as the way it is.

 

[Sweet Blue]

The ending for Twin Peaks is still haunting me...

Spoiler: Twin Peaks Series Finale Spoilers

Cooper seems so sure of him that he can manage to save Laura by creating some kind of alternative time line...
Only for it to end in a scream and all lights going brutally out.
The fear and confusion this ending creates is incredibly amazing to me. It's not 100% clear what is happening, but it's so terrifying.

 

[Darkwing-Buck]

Chinatown

 

[The Hobo]

Not Fade Away, the series finale of Angel.

 

[MadMod]

Gone Girl.

Can't get Rosamund Pikes face outta my head haha.

 

[JustTeaThankYou]

I know this is the non-gaming side so you probably mean non-gaming fiction, but I think the "bad" ending of The Witcher 3 is by far and away the best ending of the game

 

[AniHawk]

my most recent favorite might be midnight mass. it's a short list though.

 

[VAD]

Whiplash.

 

[Trouble]

Reilly, Ace of Spies

Staring the always incredible Sam Neil. Watched it on PBS with my dad when I was a kid. I was not prepared for the ending.

Spoiler

He's marched out to a snowy field and shot with no ceremony.

I've been kinda mulling over what kind of an ending it actually was for the Brave New World book. I thought it made sense but not sure to categorize it as either happy / unhappy or just as the way it is.

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I would definitely file it under "not-happy". I get you, though, it has a pretty fatalist vibe. Nothing changes and nothing is going to change.

 

[AniHawk]

Whiplash.

Click to shrink...

 

[Pyramid Head]

View: https://youtu.be/yif5TIzaPYU?si=ImkLFttj5D4MwiHR

The ending of Withnail & I gets me every time. More a bittersweet ending for Marwood I suppose but knowing that as an alcoholic in a downward spiral, the only audience Withnail will ever have are the wolves in the park is pretty devastating, especially if you consider the extended ending from the screenplay canon.

 

[Katsyo]

I would definitely file it under "not-happy". I get you, though, it has a pretty fatalist vibe. Nothing changes and nothing is going to change.

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Yeah, I think fatalist is a pretty good way to put it. Just think it did something right since I am still reminded of it anyway haha.

 

[Garjon]

The ending of the The Bone Clocks is brilliant. Totally grim but completely reframes the entire story

 

[Willin]

 

[Carlquincy]

Seven

Blue Valentine

The Mist

The Wailing

Oldboy

One Day (movie)

Whiplash

Lala Land (debatable that it's a bad ending)

Fate Zero (goat anime for me)

Seeking a friend for the end of the world

 

[Sadire]

A Bittersweet Life has a not so happy ending, I still love it. Especially the sort of feeling you get during the credits.

Spoiler

During the ending credits, the main character shadowboxes his reflection and that reflection slowly fades. He finally looks happy, this probably links back to his lonely life and how meeting someone finally made him happy.

I like that film a lot, even though it ends on a very sad note.

 

[oberjin]

 

[Jetsun Mila]

In some weird kind of way, the ending of Z by Costa-Gavras is this and the reason it is so absolutely powerful. But I only can tell all in spoilers because the context matters.

So the reporter and the state lawyer set everything in motion independently from each other to reveal that the leaders of the fascistic police force did indeed cause the murder of the sole other candidate of the opposition, who was far more liberal (or democratic?). They got charged with first degree murder and the rest of the world now knows what happened. Everything rejoices, the opposition has the feeling that it has a chance to win against the current fascism-hiding-as-a-democracy party. The movie has only one minute left or so, so we get to the credits now, no?

Forget that. In just one minute, the scene switches to the reporter in the studio telling us in short what happened afterwards. The party drops all pretense, erects a dictatorship, puts the opposition leaders into jail or kills them and pardons everyone in the police force that was charged with murder. In the last 30 seconds, the narrator changes because the reporter himself was charged and thrown into prison and the dictatorship forbids so many things even down the letter Z because it was used as a slogan for the opposition.

And yes, that pretty much mirrors what happened in Greece around 1967. The movie states in the beginning that it is fully intentional

 

[AHA-Lambda]

La la land certainly comes to mind for me

Slightly more ambiguous but I think still fits the bill

 

[Anais Watterson]

For me it's got to be Fahrenheit 451 (maybe because I just read it but…)

Spoiler: F451

I mean, literally having to reteach society all of the literature and what it means to be a human being after a tragic war rips everyone and everything apart, that's got to be one of the most profound yet sad moments I've read in a book. (and while yes one could argue that this could be a new beginning, a new start for the society to right its wrongs, was it worth it to have some part of mother nature/ people/ buildings destroyed in order to get to this? Because if things got this way in real life, I wouldn't want this. To have everything gone, but only a select few who remember certain books, to never feel the touch of one in my hand again or smell that wonderful smell when I get a new one off the shelf, this would be my absolute hell.Not only that, I would wonder if society would ever get to the point where people would have free thoughts and feelings. Idk maybe this one is just me but I know when I finished the book I was so saddened by the ending but yet so amazed by the writing,

 

[Duncan]

fuck a sad ending

not today

 

[misc_houseplant]

So many. I love an unhappy ending

Fight Club (the book)
One Hundred Years of Solitude - the GOAT downer ending
Grapes of Wrath. Maybe most Steinbeck, actually? But especially this one
Requiem for a Dream
The Mist
Brokeback Mountain
Song of Achilles
A Little Life
Never Let Me Go
Abandon Me

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I really enjoy a number of these, so I will have to check out the ones I haven't. One Hundred Years of Solitude especially is such an incredible book. And yeah, Steinbeck was not one for happy endings. The Winter of Our Discontent, while somewhat ambiguous in its outcome, is also devastating.

 

[Kaim Argonar]

A very old one, the ending to "She, The Ultimate Weapon" / Saikano (Saishū Heiki Kanojo).

Absolutely depressing.

 

[The_Hitcher89]

Blackadder Goes Forth ended the only way it could, and was perfect

Life Is Strange is devestating as a big fan of
Chloe - Not even the fact and way that she dies, but the way you have to make it so that she dies without experiencing the rekindling friendship with Max

Outer Wilds gave me a sense of existential dread

 

[Pizza Dog]

"Bang."



You're gonna carry that weight.

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Anyone want to share what this is?

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Anyone want to share what this is?

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Cowboy Bebop?

 

[Valkerion]

So many gundam endings in the UC side of things. And IBO and Thunderbolt in more recent memory.

 

[supernormal]

Se7en
The Last of Us
The Descent
The Wrestler
Memento
La La Land is the perfect bittersweet ending

 

[earthsucks]

in the mood for love is hard to top.

 

[ClivePwned]

The Young Ones
Blake's 7
Casablanca
Soylent Green/ Omega Man/ Planet of the Apes
ST TNG- Yesterday's Enterprise
ST City on the Edge of Forever
DS9 Children of Time
Of Mice and Men
Hateful 8
Scarface
Chinatown
Every Episode of the Incredible Hulk
Brazil
Halo: Reach

 

[Magic Mushroom]

So many.Just a few:
SOMA
Blindsight
Se7en
Arlington Road
The Mist
Life
Gone Girl
Spoorloos
The Thing

Outer Wilds has a brilliant ending, maybe my favorite in any medium, but I'd say it's more bittersweet than outright unhappy.

 

[Sec0nd]

Neon Genesis Evangelion
La La Land (although it's debatable if it's actually a sad ending or not)

 

[mightyrat]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

A more recent one: Don't Look Up

 

[Hambulance]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liPu1_aPH5k

 

[Nakho]

The Young Ones
Blake's 7
Casablanca
Soylent Green/ Omega Man/ Planet of the Apes
ST TNG- Yesterday's Enterprise
ST City on the Edge of Forever
DS9 Children of Time
Of Mice and Men
Hateful 8
Scarface
Chinatown
Every Episode of the Incredible Hulk
Brazil
Halo: Reach

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Brazil is awesome. Shame that Terry Gillian is a tool nowadays, the man really could direct a movie

 

[Strings]

Neon Genesis Evangelion
La La Land (although it's debatable if it's actually a sad ending or not)

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Unironically a happy ending. This is the most life-affirming thing ever:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQTOREbbQGQ