Rambling about happy endings

One thing I appreciate about horror and tragedy stories is how events and their consequences stick.

Good stories aim for satisfying, meaningful resolutions, and a lot of times that means hopeful and happy ones. Sure, Bittersweet Endings and Earn Your Happy Endings exist, but it doesn't change the fact that most of the sweetness or happiness comes from undoing the stressors of the narrative, or from ticking off some presumed markers of "happy endings" such as continuing a relationship, or certain characters surviving to the end.

Stories that follow those cliches aren't inherently bad^[1][2] but knowing that most storytellers will aim for them removes a lot of the emotional investment for me. Why should I care about so-and-so happenings, if it doesn't change the characters, relationships, or setting in any meaningful way? We made it to the end at the cost of nothing - a circular journey where we saw nothing, felt nothing, and received no new insights about the people we journeyed with and the place we began in.

In horror and tragedy, change and consequence are core features. The horror of having the very foundations of your world, and even your sense of self, be altered permanently. The tragedy of being unable to undo hurtful actions, of being unable to escape the consequences of your own and of others' decisions. The world cannot go back to the way it was before. We can only deal with what happens afterwards.

That, to me, is a far more interesting and engaging story. They say: there is meaning in all of this, even if we can't achieve success or everlasting bliss. It is not a deficiency to fall short of our goals or to be upset: it is just being human. Those who fail, those who cannot keep up with earth-shattering changes or outwit their enemies, their stories still matter.