Happy endings or resolution?

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

What do you look out for?

I was thinking about some books I have enjoyed lately, such as VanderMeer's Veniss Underground, Mieville's Perdido Street Station or Ken MacLeod's Engines of Light trilogy, and realised that all these books feature a resolution of the central conflict but no happy endings for the main protagonist. In some cases, the heroes have lost all, or even died at the end, but the cause they were fighting for has triumphed.

Even Tolkien's Lord of the Rings could be argued as resolving the battle between darkness and light but not necessarily tying in to a happy ending in the sense that magic has irrevocably left Middle Earth. The elves are gone and what is left is a place that contains less wonder than it once did.

These endings make sense to me - and I certainly do not demand that a story should end 'happy ever after in the marketplace' for the lead characters, just that the central conflict be resolved in a satisfactory and convincing manner.

What do you think?

 

[deathrider]

Happy endings that tie everything up and leave the main players of a book with cherry pies and ice cream sodas just irritate me more often than not.

Resolutions are good. I like the stories I read to resolve themselves and let the main players achieve some sort of closure.

Then again I also really like open endings when they are done well. So i'm not too sure where I stand on this.

 

[dwndrgn]

I need resolution - otherwise I feel as if I've wasted my time...

I'm also a sucker for those 'happily ever after' type of endings. Just a sap I suppose.

 

[Sirathiel]

i think I like best combinations of both: the plot has to be resolved and those who acheived that deserve a life of peace afterwards.

I wouldn't say that Lord of the Rings doesn't have a happy ending. All the hobbits except Bilbo and Frodo live happily ever after type of lives, Aragorn gets Arwen and gets to live with her for a looong time. The elves finally return to the light of the West. Gandalf has managed all he was sent to do and can return too. Bilbo and Frodo who both can't find happiness in Middle Earth are taken with the Elves and Gandalf, probably to a better life for them.

Oh yes and the bad guys get what they deserved, too. Although I'm a bit sorry for Gollum...

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

True. My point was really that the story does not, in fact, have an alloyedly happy ending in some senses.

 

[Sirathiel]

That is true. I could also say that it's the kind of ending I like most: it's a happy ending without getting sappy and all plots are more or less resolved.

 

[erickad71]

I like a good resolution...and if it includes a happy ending(as long as it makes sense) all the better.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Happy endings are nice, but I don't like it when they feel contrived. I'd much rather have resolution if it seems like the author or filmmaker has "cheated" in order to get the happy ending accomplished.

 

[rune]

I need a resolution, it doesnt necessarily have to be happy one as long as the story is concluded in some way

 

[Brian G Turner]

Resolution is absolutely required (unless there's a sequel ) - but any resolution has to be absolutely in keeping with the story and characters. Personally, I find challenged characters are much more interesting.

 

[BAYLOR]

I have a habit of preferring happy ending that ties things up in novels Hard and less then happy endings I can deal with if it's a short story.

 

[dask]

I like endings that make sense in a noticeable way, not head scratchers. I also would prefer not to have the last sentence (or in some cases, sentences) wrap things up with a foreign phrase unless it’s translated.

 

[tinkerdan]

I agree that a resolution is important--however I think happy is optional and in some cases probably up to the agency footing the bill--such as the case with Robert Heinlein's Podkayne of Mars.

I think it might also be possible for there to be a resolution that some readers might not understand as a resolution and that might be where some of those strangely add on endings come from.

I get the series thing however that can begin to go too far.

I remember reading the Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs for the first time.
Back then in the 60's even though I could clearly see there were more books and even though the prologue and the ending intimated that there was more to come, the book actually ended in an incomplete note and at the time acquiring the next book was near impossible unless you ordered it direct from the publishers and even then it took forever for them to get back with you to say it wasn't available at the moment. I'm trying to remember how I felt at the time; I do know that I was mostly enthusiastic about getting the rest of the Mars books. Eventually it became tiring to find that most of the John Carter stories ended with cliff hangers.

Still, beyond that I seem to recall a number of books I have read that the ending was not really resolving anything, yet it some how worked.
One of those that I recall right off the top is The Egg Shaped Thing by Christopher Hodder-Williams. And that one is one that I've read more than once. It might be because it might or might not have resolved; however. without more pages, the reader can't be sure.

 

[luriantimetraveler]

I am definitely in the camp of preferring resolved endings to happy endings — but it also, I think, has to do with what type of conflict drives the story. Stories driven by inquiry (e.g., who did the crime? Who stole the thing?) need an answer; stories driven by a place (e.g., will they escape?) need to end somewhere else; stories driven by character (e.g., I dislike myself) need to end with a character understanding themselves differently.

That being said, I think some really satisfying stories end by showing that the conflict in the story is in some ways a precursor to another conflict that occurs beyond the pages. The first example that springs to mind is Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog, which closes both the inquiry and place conflicts, and then introduces a new inquiry in the final pages — a question/conflict that the characters couldn't have understood at the beginning, but now will grapple with off-page. It's a delicious kind of "What if?" that allows the book to keep living in the reader's mind beyond the reading experience.

Just my two cents!

 

[Nara]

A resolved happy ending

 

[Rodders]

I think I would prefer a resolved ending and generally look on happy endings as a Hollywood ending.

I think it's great when the hero actually dies. This is much more pronounced in movies.

 

[Toby Frost]

I quite like what I'd call optimistic endings rather than happy or concluded ones. I'm thinking of stories that end with a big tipping point, but don't show the ending of the story - winning a crucial battle rather than the whole war. John Wyndham ended several books this way, and the film of Starship Troopers does this well. A variant of this is used in Salem's Lot and Rogue Male, where the story ends with the hero about to take the fight to his enemies once and for all. However I think it depends hugely on the nature of the story, and any can work well in the right circumstances.

 

[Randy M.]

I'm all for resolution. If it's also a happy ending ... well, okay. I guess that could happen.

 

[Parson]

I've often said that the biggest lie in a fairy tale was always the last line when it read: "And they all lived happily ever after." --- Unless you have a suboptimal definition of happy.

My biggest need in an ending is that it stays true to the rest of the story. A main character who struggles all the way though a conflict but after resolving the conflict is still struggling is fine with me.

You also have to consider that the ending is almost demanded by some kinds of books. If my wife's romances ended in any other way than that the couple commits to one another and things look good for them, I have no doubt the book would be launched into the nearest trash receptacle. On the other hand David Webber's Out of the Dark has a happy ending which made me so angry that I can hardly describe it. I'd have been much happier with the "good guys" losing.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

I will admit to having a preference for happy endings, but a resolved ending is an absolute must for me. I'm fine with putting the characters through the ringer before they get that happy ending and leaving them with the scars to prove it, but I do like to see things come out alright in the end. However, the degree of happiness is flexible for me depending on the story. The Lord of the Rings had more of a poignant ending in some respects than a happy one, but it was a satisfactory ending.