Downer Ending/Literature: Difference between revisions

* Virtually anything written by [[John Steinbeck]]. Not because he liked downer endings of course. He just loved inherently depressing subjects in the first place that couldn't end in anything but tragedy.

* Also fond of them is author [[Cormac McCarthy]]. ''[[Blood Meridian]]'' ends with every character in the posse dying, except for a figure which is either the villain or the protagonist, but more likely is the villain. In ''[[No Country for Old Men]]'' the protagonist is killed by the Mexicans, and his wife is killed by Anton. ''[[The Road]]'''s [[Bittersweet Ending]] seems comparatively festive.

* The novel [[Outsourced (novel)|Outsourced]] ends with Isaac Fisher, having finally stood up to Felix and gaining some level of understanding with his sister regarding his gender reassignment surgery, going alone to face his former employers. It turns out that he was a service clone made by his original to make him money for his own gender reassignment surgery, because of the lack of laws protecting clone rights. What follows is a scene mimicking the very first source of drama in the book.

* Present in most of the [[Fantastic Comedy]] novels of Tom Holt. ''Little People'' and ''In Your Dreams'' stand out as having especially (even gratuitously) depressing endings.

** The same is true of his novels set in antiquity (Olympiad, A Song for Nero, Alexander at the World's End). This might be somewhat justified by the narratives exploring various ancient philosophies, but not entirely. For example, A Song For Nero, which starts out as a relatively amusing story about two itinerant conmen having adventures all over the Roman Empire. And then in true Tom Holt fashion, everything falls apart about 3/4 of the way through the book. It's ridiculously depressing.

* ''The [[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'': In the fifth book, ''Mostly Harmless'', all of the main characters died (except Zaphod, who was never mentioned again after the end of the third book) in an explosion that resulted in Earth being destroyed in all possible realities. Rather jarring in a series that was mostly lighthearted comedy, if not above a little black humor. Reportedly, [[Douglas Adams]] was considering writing a sixth book to end on a lighter note, but - rather depressingly - died before he managed to complete it, or even change it from its [[Dirk Gently]] origins.

** Fit the Twenty-Sixth of the Quintessential Series of the radio broadcast presents a different ending from Mostly Harmless; in it, most of the main characters reappear at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, including Fenchurch and Marvin. Fitting that Adams, who loved to change the story for each format, would create two wildly different endings.

* [[China Mieville]]'s ''[[Perdido Street Station]]'': it is revealed that Isaac's girlfriend Lin is still alive, and he's reunited with her just long enough for her mind to be partially destroyed by the last slake moth, leaving her a slobbering near-vegetable. All of the other people whose minds were drained by the slake moths are lost causes. It is revealed that Yagharek's mysterious crime that caused him to be exiled from garuda society and have his wings torn out is rape, and even though the female garuda that was raped very pointedly tells Isaac to not judge Yagharek, Isaac refuses to help him. The book ends with Yagharek pulling out his feathers and smashing his beak, so as to appear "human". He encounters Jack Half-a-Prayer, who extends out his hand, inviting him to join his gang.

** It's important to note that Yagharek's victim also asks Isaac not to help Yagharek to escape his punishment.

* The short science fiction story ''[[The Cold Equations]]'' is [[All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game"|famous for]] its Downer Ending: there really isn't a way to save the girl, and she goes out the airlock willingly so the spaceship doesn't crash.

* Speaking of short science fiction stories: ''Stories Of Your Life And Others'' by Ted Chiang includes "Hell Is The Absence Of God,". A skeptic and cripple who despises God on account of all the horrible misfortunes in his life is struck by a genuine [[Beam of Enlightenment]], which makes him love God unconditionally and supposedly guarantees his entrance to Heaven... and then moments later he dies and is arbitrarily sent to Hell, where the titular absence of God inflicts constant [[Mind Rape]] on his now deity-loving psyche... forever.

* ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' and all their adaptions by extension. C'mon, they kill themselves at the end when if Romeo had waited just one more single minute he would have seen Juliet was [[Not Quite Dead|not dead]] and they could have gone off into the sunset together.

** One of the movie adaptations makes it even ''worse''. Juliet wakes up ''while Romeo is still alive'', but he has already drunk the poison. So he dies knowing that his death was ''completely pointless''. As if the original ending wasn't enough of a downer.

** That, believe it or not, has actually been subverted in a recent novel adaption of the story called "Romeo's Ex." The book is mainly told from the point of view of [[The Ghost|Rosaline]], who, with Benvolio (and after the technical "canon" ending of the play), manages to make Romeo throw up the poison in time, saving his life. Although Juliet stays dead.

* For that matter any of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]'s Tragedies: ''[[Hamlet]]'' and ''[[Othello]]'' and ''[[King Lear]]''. ''[[Macbeth]]'', despite being named as a tragedy, is really more of a [[Bittersweet Ending]] because, when you think about it, it's pretty darn happy that the [[Evil Overlord]] is overthrown and a new, fairer king is installed.

** For the record, in ''Hamlet'' the hero manages to kill his father's murderer, but by that time the deaths of pretty much everybody else in the play have already happened.

*** [[Oscar Wilde]]'s ''The Happy Prince''. Or not so happy.

* A lot of stories by [[Hans Christian Andersen]]. "[[The Little Match Girl]]" and the original "[[Little Mermaid]]".

* The last book of the [[Sienkiewicz Trilogy]], ''Pan Wolodjyowski'', ends with the main character dead, along with several of his companions, and part of Poland ceded to the enemy. It is especially tragic for his wife, as the book deals with their relationship, which is very loving. This is in stark contrast to two earlier books in the trilogy, ''With Fire and Sword'' and ''The Deluge'', both which see the lead couples get reunited and also end with victorious battles.

** ''Phoenix'' is arguably a [[Bittersweet Ending]] though, since the wizarding world believes Harry in the end. ''Prince'' is a more straight example.

** After his true allegiance was revealed, Snape's storyline arguably had the biggest Downer Ending is the entire series.

* The [[Stephen King]] novel ''[[The Green Mile]]'': The protagonist is forced to execute John Coffey, the black man who did not do the crime he is being executed for, but not before he's [[Blessed with Suck]] by him, and thus is forced to watch in perfect health while his friends die of old age, and is not injured in a catastrophic bus crash that takes the life of everyone else on the bus, including his wife. The book ends with his final friend, a woman in the nursing home where he lives, dying before he can tell her about his wife, and him spending his final days alone and wishing for death, but still in perfect health. As hard as it is to believe, the film was an upper ending in comparison.

** ''The Dark Half'' ends with Thad Beaumont sucsessfully overcoming his evil alter ego George Stark. This fairly upbeat ending was subverted by King in his later novel ''Needful Things'', where it was revealed that Beaumont's wife Liz divorced him, after which he killed himself.

** The ending of ''[[Cujo]]'' (not the movie): The title monster dog is finally killed, but tragically poor Tad dies of heat stroke.

* [[Philip K. Dick|Philip K Dick]]'s short story ''Second Variety'' ends with the main character bleeding out as the first of many homicidal robots exits the Earth's atmosphere towards humanity's final holdout on the moon, using a rocket and coordinates which he unwittingly provided to it. His only solace comes from noticing that the robot carried an EMP grenade - once they wipe out humankind, they just might avenge our race by killing each other.

* Conn Iggulden's ''Emperor'' series has quite the downer ending. Then again, the novels are about Julius Caesar and his friendship with Brutus, so it was hard not to see it coming.

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s short story ''[[The Long Watch]]'', which ends with a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] and the hero's death site so contaminated with radiation from the disassembled nuclear bombs that it takes ten years before men in radiation suits can retrieve him for [[Due to the Dead|a hero's funeral]] in a lead-lined casket.

* [[Ray Bradbury]]'s short story "Mars is Heaven!" starts out as a sort of [[Ontological Mystery]] in the beginning. A crew from Earth land on Mars, which looks like Ohio at the turn of the 20th century. However, when their long lost dead relatives start appearing, it becomes more of a [[Lotus Eater Machine]] story. It ends with a sort of Downer Ending, where the town and the crew's long dead loved-ones were hallucinations made by aliens. The aliens kill everyone in their sleep, bury them for some strange reason, and destroy their ship.

** A great deal of Bradbury's short stories have Downer Endings. In the collection "The Stories of Ray Bradbury", for some reason each selected story is one tale of morbidity after another.

** His short story collection "The Illustrated Man" similarly has many Downer Endings.

* M.T. Anderson's [[Dystopian]] future novel ''Feed'' ends with the protagonist watching over his completely <s> paralyzed</s> brain dead girlfriend. That's [[Tear Jerker|bad enough]], but it's also implied that shortly after the end of the book American society will collapse and then be wiped out by an [[The Federation|angry alliance of all the other countries in the world.]]

** M.T Anderson does this in a few other places, too. [[Thirsty]] has the main character going insane(and [[Horror Hunger|thirsty]]) after realizing his entire life was arranged to carry out a plan by an [[Eldritch Abomination]].

** [[Graham McNeill]]'s ''False Gods'': Horus assassinates two people, revealing his choice.

** Ben Counter's ''Galaxy In Flames'': A full-blown [[The Bad Guy Wins]], with the only consolation being that the good guys are not all [[Dying Alone]].

** [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Horus Heresy|Legion]]''. Let us count the ways. The Alpha Legion turns traitor to ensure Chaos destroys itself by eliminating humanity itself. The Imperial Guard they brought with them are either killed when they blow up their ships or doomed to die a horrible death on the planet itself. John Grammaticus [[Driven to Suicide|commits suicide by throwing himself out of an airlock]] because his best friend and his lover have betrayed him and he has doomed humanity to extinction. Oh, and all of this doesn't ''prevent'' the vision the Cabal have seen, [[Senseless Sacrifice|it]] ''[[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|ensures]]'' [[It Got Worse|it]].

** [[Graham McNeill]]'s ''Battle for the Abyss'': All of the heroes in the book die, many hating one another's guts after being relatively strong comrades to begin with. Almost all of them die pointless deaths, attempting just to slow down the planet killer they are trying to destroy. It takes an utterly suicidal attack to finally successfully board the ship, in which more than half of the remaining loyalists are killed or forced to turn their guns on one another by psychers. In their final moments they just about manage to succeed. Why is this a downer ending rather than a [[Bittersweet Ending|bitter one]]? No one will ever know of their actions, no one will remember their names or recall anything they did. They lost everything and had everything they were destroyed. Their ''victory'' was giving one loyalist legion a ''very'' slim chance at surviving a massed sneak attack by two traitor ones.

* "[[All Quiet on the Western Front]]."

* [[The Dresden Files]] aren't the happiest books in the world, but book 11 ends on a really depressing note. Sure, they found the traitor on the Council, but the whole thing was a set up to get the Black Council's guy on the Senior Council. Morgan, who was a [[Jerkass]] but a completely loyal one, is dead. Anastasia Luccio, the woman Harry has been dating, turns out to have been [[Mind Control|mentally coerced]] by the spy into the relationship in order to keep an eye on Harry. And Harry's half-brother, Thomas, has given into his vampire side after being tortured by the skin-walker and fed humans by it, and has returned to the White Court.

** If you think that is Downer Ending. Read the Next Book. For starters - {{spoiler|Harry's Car, Office and Flat gets blown up.}}. Oh and {{spoiler|Susan turns and Harry has to kill her}}....Oh and {{spoiler|he kills her for genocide-black-magic-ritual }}. OH and he is also {{spoiler|Winter Knight now}}....and {{spoiler|quite dead from getting shot in the heart by a sniper....just a few minutes after he starts some sort of romance with Murphy...OUCH...}}

* ''[[The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas]]'' definitely counts as the two main characters end up being gassed in a concentration camp while being completely unaware of what is going to happen to them. What makes it even worse is the fact that the non-Jewish boy was only in the camp to help his friend find his father who is "missing" and it is very clear to the reader that his father is in fact dead.

* ''Beggars Ride'' by Nancy Kress, last book of Beggars trilogy, ends in one of these. the Supersleepless are all dead(though samples of their sperm and eggs survive), most of the Sleepless die when Sanctuary is destroyed unreconciled with the Sleepers(though its better than if they had survived unreconciled), last bookd panacea(the Cell Cleaner which makes a person immune to almost all diseases, cancers, arthritis, skin blemishes, ect. as well as allowing said person to subsist on skin contact with dirt and sunlight) is unavailable to future generations, and an engineered virus(which is able to work around the Cell Cleaner) has infected a significant part of the population with a disease that causes a fear of novelty(worst than it sounds).

* The Canadian novel '[[Tent Of Blue]]' by Rachel Preston, though it borderlines with [[No Ending]]...

* Scott Fitzgerald's novel ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'' goes downhill rapidly in the climax as a series of unfortunate circumstances occur: Daisy Buchanan accidentally drives over Myrtle in Gatsby's car, Tom convincing Myrtle's husband that Gatsby was the driver, causing him to murder the depressed Gatsby, and then shoot himself. Daisy and Tom return to their extravagant lifestyle, leaving Nick all alone to wonder what in the world happened. Hardly anyone attends Gatsby's funeral and Nick reflects on how much rich people suck and how Gatsby was stuck in the past the entire time.

* Less down than most of these, more on the par of the [[Star Wars]] movies, where things look bad but surviving heroes are determined, but take a look at the last scenes of ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy|Dark Force Rising]]'', second book of the Thrawn trilogy. After a hard battle and ''three'' [[Big Damn Heroes]] moments, the New Republic is barely, just barely able to survive an Imperial trap. The New Republic and the Empire had been in a race of sorts to get to the long-lost ''Katana'' fleet of heavy Dreadnaughts, and in the aftermath of the battle the heroes find that while they'd been fighting among ''Katana'' fleet Dreadnaughts, there were only fifteen there. Out of ''two hundred''. [[You Are Too Late]], indeed. The heroes try to console themselves, saying that the Empire is strapped for crews and won't be able to scrape together four hundred thousand people to crew the Dreadnaughts anytime soon. And then they take a look at the bodies of the Imperials they just killed. They are all clones. Meaning that the Empire has found a new stock of Spaarti cylinders, and it ''won't'' take years to find and train crews. Maybe only months. Maybe not even that long. [[This Is Going To Hurt]].

** ''[[Outbound Flight]]'' is this or bittersweet, [[Your Mileage May Vary|depending on who you ask]]. No one clearly, unambiguously good is around at the end of the novel - the two essentially good main characters either left back in the first half or died in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] that preserves the last fifty survivors of Outbound Flight, which originally had fifty thousand people on it. The woman who sacrificed herself got another character to [[The Promise|promise]] her that he'd send back a message to her brother, who hated her. And from [[Survivors Quest]] we know that those survivors and their descendants curse that woman's name for abandoning them, that [[The Greatest Story Never Told|no one ever learns what she did]], and that the man she extracted a promise from set up a criminal organization and didn't so much as think about her request for fifty years. Damn, Lorana, [[The Woobie|you got the short end of the stick]].

** And this is a happy ending compared to his "The Sheep Look Up" concerning environmental collapse and its consequences. By the time you get to the end of the novel you realize that everyone - the good, the bad, rich, poor, the characters you've come to despise and the characters you've come cheer for, every one is dead, or dead and worse and the scariest thing about the novel is that, as noted by William Gibson, of all speculative fiction written this 1972 novel comes the absolute closest to dead-on predicting the world we live in ... right now.

* [[George Eliot]]'s ''The Mill On The Floss'' ends with Tom and Maggie Tulliver drowning unexpectedly in a flood.

* ''[[Jude the Obscure]]'' by Thomas Hardy. Jude dies alone, abandoned by the woman he loves, all three of his young children dead in a murder/suicide, while his wife who tricks him into remarrying him is off flirting with someone else.

* [[William Gibson]] and Michael Swanwick's short story, ''Dogfight''. The protagonist succeeds at his ultimate objective (defeating the local champion of a holographic, mentally-controlled battle game featuring WWI fighter planes), but immediately afterwards realizes [[Pyrrhic Victory|the price he paid to do so was too high]]: stealing a piece of game-breaking technology from his only friend to give himself an advantage (psychologically scarring her in the process, due to a chastity implant her parents gave her that gives her a crippling fear of being touched by men) and alienating himself from the rest of the bar's patrons by robbing the game's champion (a quadriplegic war veteran) of the only pleasure left in his life. What good is a victory when you have no one to share it with?

* ''[[Beachwalker]]'' ends with the protagonist losing her beloved patient, then dying herself shortly afterward. Made slightly less sad by the ambiguous sensation of fingers closing around her hand just as she dies, implying that they are [[Together in Death]].

* ''[[The Godfather]]''. Michael reasserts the Corleone family's dominance with a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] at the cost of his soul.

* Arguably, ''[[Someone Else's War|Someone Elses War]]'' is a successful blend of this trope and [[Earn Your Happy Ending]].

 

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