I am so tired of seeing stories end with overtly depressing "realism."

The protagonist is forever scarred and jaded. The love interests separate. The adventuring crew part ways. The evil is defeated and the world is still messed up.

Whatever happened to happy endings?

There's an unspoken comfort & relief when stories give us blatantly happy endings - especially in fantasy, where most of us go to escape from our own realities. So to see the worlds & characters we've spent so much time with just simply...existing at the end...it's heartbreaking.

If the story in itself is harrowing and dangerous, taking the protagonists through the intricacies of real world parallels during their adventures, then why choose to end it on such a dour note? For "realism"? It's fantasy. For consistency? Change is paramount for plot.

It baffles me how afraid some creators are of having their stories end happily. What does that say, that as a creator, not even you who made every aspect of your fantasy, will allow everything to come to peace at the very end? What does it say that you end in a desire for more?

What will that tell your audience - who went on this journey with these characters, experienced the world in all its beauties and horrors, failed and triumphed over obstacle after obstacle with the protagonists, only to have their emotional involvement be for naught?

For realistic deception.

That nothing the characters could ever do mattered. Would stop their friends from falling apart. Or their true love from leaving. Or the world from breaking down around them.

To reflect that nothing YOU could ever do really, truly matters in the end.

Sometimes people grow distant. They leave. Disappear. Some people need to change on their own. Sometimes you can't fix the world by taking out a singular, big, bad, evil guy. The world is bigger than just one evil.

And you are very small.

People use stories for many aspects, such as dissecting these aspects of our realities to better understand them, their purpose, and our place in the chaotic machinations life has in store for us.

This is not what we're discussing here.

Stories that are consumed at a certain point reflect the time in which they're made and the people who make them. Like time capsules. Reactions to personal woes, strained relationships, political climates, social prejudices, and so on.

For many, it's an escape from reality.

So it's very jarring when such stories end...sour, ya know?

To have gone through such pains and hardships and to be shown that everything is okay at the end - maybe even better than before, but most importantly okay and safe - is the ultimate fantasy dream.

That what the characters did had an impact. They survived. They're together. They're in love. They're a family. They're not alone in a vast, unforgiving world. They grew to become their better selves. They changed. They mattered.

And now they get to live happily ever after.

The lack of happy endings in recent times really speaks to the modern disillusionment with hoping for a better future.

That is a whole can or worms I don't really wanna wriggle with at 5am, and this thread is already too long, but I felt it worth mentioning.

The world is a dark and daunting place to live in. Everyone needs a happy ending, in reality, and in the stories we use to process it.

So please, bring back happy endings.