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Happily Ever After: Difference between revisions
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The original source of the '''Happily Ever After''' endings, the [[Fairy Tale]], often dealt with the end of the evil characters, with great finality and with more details than the hero and heroine's happiness. The [[Wicked Stepmother]] arrives at [[Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (novel)|Snow White]]'s wedding, whereupon she is forced to put on red-hot iron shoes and dance until she dies, and this is an utterly typical fairy tale ending.
Interestingly enough, this is something of a [[Dead Unicorn Trope]], as many of the older fairy tales had endings that provided [[An Aesop]], however [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|unfriendly]].
See also [[True Love's Kiss]], [[Died Happily Ever After]], [[Babies Ever After]], [[Dance Party Ending]], [[The Good Guys Always Win]]. Contrast [[Downer Ending]] and [[Bittersweet Ending]], the cruellest examples of which make us ''think'' they're going to be a case of this trope before [[Cruel Twist Ending|yanking the rug out from under the audience]]. Compare [[Maybe Ever After]], which leaves open the possibiity of a happily ever after ending, but doesn't make it a certain conclusion, and [[Earn Your Happy Ending]], in which the characters only live '''Happily Ever After''' if they're prepared to put some effort into it. In more modern works, even a straight '''Happily Ever After''' can have the rug pulled out from under it in the sequel, in which we catch up with [[Prince Charming]] and his princess and find that they're [[Downtime Downgrade|getting on each other's nerves]] and [[Sequelitis|have to fall in love all over again]].
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* Subverted in ''[[The Princess Bride (novel)|The Princess Bride]]'': the narrator's father said that the characters 'lived happily ever after,' but when the narrator gets around to reading the book himself as an adult, he finds out that it's actually an open ending with the success of the escape [[Left Hanging|left in doubt]]. The movie adaptation, however, plays this trope straight.
* Regardless of what [[Fanon Discontinuity|some fans think about it]], the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' epilogue shows this happening to the heroes.
* Subverted in ''[[Atonement]]'', in which the narrator Briony, who pulled an [[I Should Write a Book About This]], says she wanted to give her sister and her lover a happy ending, but {{spoiler|in reality both are dead.}}
* Subverted in ''[[Candide]]''. The title character has reunited with his love and Pangloss goes on another diatribe about how this is the best of all possible worlds. Only the girl is sunburned, leathery, and peevish from outdoor labor and, with all the tragedy Candide gamely suffers throughout the story, he politely tells Pangloss to shove it.
** On the other hand, the point of the book is that "If this is not the best of all possible worlds, it is at least not the worst", and Candide manages to find ''some'' satisfaction in his new life. "We must all tend our garden."
* Most ''[[Xanth]]'' books end like this, at least for the major protagonists, though even people who've had their happy endings sometimes get into an adventure again, usually because of an unrelated problem.
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* ''[[The Tenth Kingdom]]'': it's possible to live happily ever after ''one day at a time''.
* ''[[The Steve Harvey Show]]'': Steve follows Regina to her new job in California, Ced and Lovita win the lottery just as Lovita goes into labor, and Romeo, Lydia, and Bullethead graduate from high school and are accepted at college.
* ''[[Skins]]'': The S4 finale very strongly implies that Naomi and Emily will be this, having finally realised they're each other's One True Love.
** There's even a sign hanging in Naomi's room in S4 that says "... and they lived happily ever after."
* ''[[Good Times]]'': Keith gets another shot at pro football when the Bears give him a contract, enabling him and Thelma to move to a swanky condo. Thelma is pregnant and she and Keith invite Florida to live with them. Michael moves to a dorm on campus. Willona is promoted to head buyer at the boutique and she and Penny also move to the same condo but on a different floor. JJ creates a comic book character called DynoWoman and she is modeled after Thelma. He is given a huge advance, enabling him to move out of the projects as well.
* After enduring avalanches of angst and complications from life-changing injuries to divorces to deaths in the family to [[Unrequited Love]] throughout the show's eleven-year run, ''[[Frasier]]'' ends with Martin remarrying, a still-[[Happily Married]] Niles and Daphne having their first child, and Frasier finally, ''finally'' finding a great woman who he loves and who loves him back. It took years of catastrophes and hijinks, but it's gratifying to see the Crane men finally hit the jackpot.
* ''[[Roswell]]'' has an epilogue tacked on to the series finale, revealing that Liz and Max get married and the gang is doing well even though they are permanently on the run from the government. The last line is "All I know is that I'm Liz Parker, and I'm happy."
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* ''[[Bob and George]]'' ends when all the characters who were supposed to die in the Cataclysm, plus Bob and George who were supposed to go home and be miserable and die young respectively, fake their deaths, move to Acapulco, and live happily ever after.
* Even ''[[Cyanide
* [[The Dreamland Chronicles]] [http://www.thedreamlandchronicles.com/the-dreamland-chronicles/todays-dreamland-chronicles-600/ Confidently predicted]
* ''[[Axe Cop]]'' once married [[Gender Bender|Girl Abraham Lincoln]] and lived Happily Ever After... until he got really bored.
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** This happened earlier in ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'''s sporking of ''[[Soultaker]]'', where Crow and Servo refuse to accept the movie's Happily Ever After and instead offer a [[Downer Ending]] where the protagonist ends up in jail. Mike asks if they aren't being a little doom-and-gloom, and they [[Sarcasm Mode|sarcastically]] suggest a [[Sugar Bowl]] ending that is literally rainbows and unicorns. Mike asks if there can't be a middle ground and they say nope, it's either prison or unicorns.
* [[Multiple Endings|One ending]] of ''[[Three Worlds Collide]]'' makes living happily ever after ''horrifying''. Happiness is overrated.
* [[Wrestlecrap|RD Reynolds]] writes in his ''No Holds Barred'' [http://www.wrestlecrap.com/classic35.html induction] "And thus everyone lives happily ever after... Well, except for [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Brell]] and [[The Antagonist|Zeus]], since they're dead."
== Western Animation ==
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[[Category:Fairy Tale Tropes]]
[[Category:Romance Novel Tropes]]
[[Category:
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