Who wants a happy ending?

[elfs]

So, as I've been writing through this silly arc of stories, I've been asking myself, "Which couple here doesn't get the happy ending?" Because, y'know, they can't all have happy endings. Saul & Khrystyne are a good subject for a bad ending, but I really want Dove & The Twins to work, and Polly & Zia, and Illonca & Rhiane can't possibly go wrong; those two were written for each other. I suppose I could come up with new characters and relationships just to have things go sour on some people, but that feels like a cop-out. I disagree with Tolstoy; I think he had it backwards. Everyone is happy in their own unique way; it is in our misery that we are all similar. I think that's endemic to the human state: we are made to be anxious, miserable creatures, struggling against one another and our own natures (or, if you're religious, our own sinful state, or our attachments, or whatever); finding happiness and joy is so unlikely, so hard, and so fragile that it must be unique from human being to human being.

I was reminded of this consistent theme in my life this afternoon, oddly enough, while looking through a vast raft of Mai HiME doujinshi and I realized, after going through it, that the fans really, really wanted a happy ending for the most tragic couple in the series. Yukino and Haruka had two lovely tales; Mai and Mikoto had two jokey stories; there was a smattering of scenes for Chie and Aoi, and one nasty revenge story about Nao. And then there were nearly twenty stories about Haruka and Natsuko. If you don't know the storyline, every female character is a "magical girl," but Haruka is the only lesbian character; When Natusko tells her, "I cannot love you the way you want me to," she goes on a wild rampage with her magical abilities, killing far too many people before she's stopped. It would seem that the audience felt that that relationship, among all, was poorly handled. (Yukino may have been gay, or she may just have had a terrible case of hero worship for Haruka. I think I'd prefer the latter.)

So the big deal, of course, going back to my original point, is that for fiction to "feel right," the losers must deserve to lose, they must have some characteristic that makes them lose. Now I just need to figure out what that characteristic really is.

Comments

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

I suppose there's cases when an undeserved fate is necessary for the story. Look at "The Grapes of Wrath" or "A;; Quiet on the Western Front". But that undeserved fate is the reason for the story. It is part of the futility of war.

If you're not writing that sort of story I suppose it helps that the characters deserve, in some sense, what happens to them. It's comforting for the reader. The murderer is exposed. The lovers are reunited. It's a valid story structure; just not a universal.

And, even if they don't deserve a failure ending, there can be a satisfaction for the reader in seeing what the dumb mistake was. Or maybe it's a tragedy, and we don't, today, easily see why Romeo and Juliet couldn't just elope.

Although I'd worry about a porn tragedy. Just think of the know-nothings who'd gleefully tell everyone that just having sexual fun is reason enough for a dreadful fate.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Romeo and Juliet *did* elope. The plan for getting them out of the city is where it all goes wrong.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Hmm? Yes, but they didn't have to use a plan worthy of the Priory of Sion, did they.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

It's their own fault for being in a tragedy in the first place. The moment I read the bit about star-cross'd lovers I would have been out of there like a shot, if the title hadn't managed to scare me off already.

:-)

[norikos-author.livejournal.com]

_Can't_ they all have happy endings? I don't see any reason why not, as long as they go through enough hell on the way to earn it.

Admittedly, I don't know your story (and may I just say that I was really bummed that you fixed the bug that let you see unreleased stories?), so there might well be a reason why not, but as a general rule I don't have a problem with all the characters having a happy ending. Some may just need to have a couple of extra tons of shit land on their head on the way.

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

I disagree with Tolstoy; I think he had it backwards. Everyone is happy in their own unique way; it is in our misery that we are all similar.

Some things are difficult to translate. One of them, I believe, is the peculiar and remarkable Russian affinity for misery. I think that a combination of circumstance and cultural predilection has fostered an identification with misery and hopelessness in that world, as with happiness and possibility in ours. The senses of tragedy, fate, and general pessimism run so thoroughly in that society -- not at all without justification -- that happiness seems like a tacky foreign souvenir, almost, or perhaps a short-lived, unstable isotope. I think it is this impermanent, unstable "nature" of happiness that Tolstoy sought to convey with his story "Semeinoye schast'ye" ("Family Happiness"), about which you were paraphrasing, if I remember correctly.

Or, to address your statement crudely: if millions of people over many generations spend most of their time enveloped in misery, then they will become pretty good at it, with lots of individual refinement and variation, especially given the Russian premium on imagination. In our culture, by and large, people tend to strive for something better, hoping that effort or fortune will brighten their horizons. We spend lots of time enveloped at least in the anticipation of that happiness, and in many cases generating very creative manifestations of it.

I didn't "get it" about this and many other aspects of Russian culture until I lived there, despite having studied the language/lit/history/politics/etc. intensively for two years. Just didn't fucking get it, not in the slightest. I don't know whether it's possible to do so.

Coda: My last visit to Russia was in 1992, to Provideniya, a very remote outpost on the Bering sea, a tiny neo-town built around a government installation. I happened to stay with a family in the newest apartment building in town, the only one that didn't appear to be actively falling down, basically a stack of enormous concrete cubes. I commented to my host that he had a nice apartment, in such a well-built structure... he responded that yes, it was a solid building, but "one of my neighbors is a scientist and has determined that it was poured from concrete made from highly radioactive sand, and I worry greatly about the health of my two young daughters...."

Cheers,
- Eddie

Wow...

[(Anonymous)]

Now *that's* a post!

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Not having read anything other than your posts about the story, couldn't it just be a situational thing? Timing, mis-communication, bad hair day... There's millions of reasons why two people in the end just don't fit, it doesn't have to be anything either of them "deserves". Having someone "deserve" unhappiness seems less realistic to me and, I think, would negate what you're trying to do by having a non-happy ending in there.